ronger stuff then. But which of us
broke the chain?"

"They took us away from each other, and it was never finished. Do you
remember nothing?"

"The present is enough for me," said her lover; and he finished his
necklace with a handsome clasp of blossoms, and threw it over her
neck. She gave a low sigh of satisfaction.

"I have been waiting for it ever since that time! And here is mine for
you."

Thus adorned by each other's hands, their love seemed greater than
before, and they laughed from pure delight. Their bonds looked
fragile; yet it would need a stronger wrench to part them than had
they been cables of iron or gold, unsustained by the subtile might of
love.

"Let us link them together," proposed Balder; and, loosening a link of
his chain, he reunited it inside Gnulemah's. "We must keep together,"
he continued with a smile, "or the marriage-bonds will break."

"Is this marriage, Balder? to be tied together with flowers?"

"One part of marriage. It shows the world that we belong only to each
other."

"How could they help knowing that,--for to whom else could we
belong? besides, why should they know?"

"Because," answered Balder after some consideration, "the world is
made in such a way, that unless we record all we do by some visible
symbol, everything would get into confusion."

"No no," protested Gnulemah, earnestly. "Only God should know how we
love. Must the world know our words and thoughts, and how we have sat
beneath these trees?--Then let us not be married!"

They were leaning side to side against the bench, along whose edge
Balder had stretched an arm to cushion Gnulemah's head. As he turned
to look at her, a dash of sunlight was quivering on her clear smooth
cheek, and another ventured to nestle warmly below the head of the
guardian serpent on her bosom, for Gnulemah and the sun had been
lovers long before Balder's appearance. Where breathed such another
woman? From the low turban that pressed her hair to the bright sandals
on her fine bronze feet, there was no fault, save her very uniqueness.
She belonged not to this era, but to the Golden Age, past or to come.
Could she ever be conformed to the world of to-day? Dared her lover
assume the responsibility of revealing to this noble soul all the
meanness, sophistries, little pleasures, and low aims of this
imperfect age? Could he change the world to suit her needs? or endure
to see her change to suit the world? Moreover, changing so much, mig